The Gingerbread Man's torture (being dunked in a glass of milk) is played for laughs...but the implication there is that Lord Farquaad was going to eat him alive, piece by piece, until he talked. Hell, even the fact that he broke Gingy's legs off while Gingy was still alive and conscious is horrific. Imagine this happening to one of the more humanoid characters like Shrek—it'd be torture horror on the level of Saw.note Doubles as Hilarious in Hindsight when you consider that the first Saw came out in 2004, the same year as Shrek 2.
Farquaad clearly has no compunctions about executing fairy tale creatures; after capturing The Three Bears he killed Mama Bear and turned her into a rug, deporting the other two to Shrek's swamp to mourn in misery.
His Evil Laugh emphasizes his cruelty to the extreme.
Dragon's first appearance can be rather frightening, with her sheer ferociousness doubled with all the skeletal corpses scattered around her castle.
Dragon herself is quite terrifying, especially when she has Donkey cornered after separating him from Shrek. The ominous red lighting seen as Dragon spreads her wings outward and reveals herself to be capable of standing in a bipedal position (while towering over an understandably fearful Donkey) helps to make it look like Donkey is at the mercy of one of the Devil's beasts...
The scene of Fiona's curse being revealed; it plays out as a parody of Alone with the Psycho. Donkey goes into the mill where she's spending the night and notices it's all dark inside. He calls out for Fiona, only to see a large green figure stumbling. Donkey understandably starts screaming when he realizes he's trapped in a shadowy building with a monster...until Fiona reveals that she is the monster.
On Fiona's side, she's getting ready for bed. Then one of her friends is calling out for her, in danger of seeing her true form. Fiona tries to hide, only to trip and fall. She sees Donkey looking at her in utter terror and trying to call Shrek. You can hear the fear in her voice as she gets him to calm down.
Lord Farquaad's planned punishment for Shrek and Fiona was this, with Farquaad intending for Shrek to be tortured, namely drawn and quartered, and that he'd beg for death to save him, while Fiona would be given the same fate she had already endured at the beginning of the film.
The music when we first meet Farquaad sounds like a very eerie jingle played by a pipe organ. The choir heard vocalizing along with the music adds into the creepiness.
when we first meet Farquaad sounds like a very eerie jingle played by a pipe organ. The choir heard vocalizing along with the music adds into the creepiness.